“Catholic libertarians? How is that even a thing??”

Not only from other libertarians, but from other Catholics as well. The standard response from some other libertarians frequently goes exactly as you may already be expecting:

Are you kidding me? Doesn’t the Catholic Church have a long ugly history of itself being an oppressive government? The Pope is a dictator! Vatican City is still one of the last true monarchies! It is a religion, that is also a government… that has its own country… with its own flag. They teach Christ’s kingship over the entire earth! The Pope condemns social liberties, women’s rights, sexual freedom, [insert countless other prohibitions here], while also advocating for “world unity”, “one faith”, central banks, social doctrines, and.. and… the Crusades!? The Inquisition!? New World Order! C’mon!

So we’ve heard. On the flip side, I’m pretty familiar with the responses from many Catholics as well, primarily because I once espoused many of them myself:

Are you kidding me? Don’t libertarians support abortion, gay marriage and recreational drug use? Aren’t they greedy ultra-capitalists who don’t care about the poor? Some of them are even… anarchists! We can’t have total hedonism, we need law and order, like in the Church. We need the State to ensure that our morals and values are protected and enforced. We must respect temporal authority, and we have a moral obligation to pay taxes; you know, “Render unto Caesar…” Besides, the Church teaches distributism, which is incompatible with capitalism and free markets.

Don’t worry; over time, I hope to eventually write at length here at Catholic.Liberty.me addressing these and other concerns from all sides, and possibly include articles from colleagues and other contributors as well. This, however, is just my long-overdue (yet perhaps well-timed) introduction. Although I haven’t had time to be an active participant in Liberty.me thus far, I’m absolutely thrilled to be a founding member.

Now then… We assert that not only are Catholicism and libertarianism completely—and beautifully—compatible, but that Catholicism itself is essentially libertarian. I do, however, completely understand the perceived conflict on both sides. Why is there perceived conflict? Libertarians are rather keenly aware that politicians, pundits, journalists and even historians are usually more than eager to ignore, downplay, misrepresent and blame the free market at any given opportunity. Case in point, just ask the average American to define capitalism and listen to them describe almost the exact opposite. Likewise, Catholics will contend that these often-mutual antagonists do the exact same thing to Catholicism. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once said:

There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing.

I would say the same idea applies to true libertarianism as well. Furthermore, I suggest also that if you want to seek out truth, simply look first towards what is vilified and attacked the most in mainstream popular culture. In politics, that would be the free market. In religion, that would be Catholicism (see The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice, written by an Episcopalian).

I hope that we can effectively demonstrate to our fellow Catholics not only that every devout Catholic can and should be a libertarian, but even more so, to be obedient to the teachings of the Church, we practically must be. (“Did he really just use the words ‘libertarian’ and ‘obedient’ in the same sentence?”) In fact, if you are a devout practicing Catholic, you may discover that you are already pretty darn libertarian, you have just yet to realize it. We also hope to clarify many of the misunderstandings towards the Church from many of our fellow brothers and sisters in liberty, and that if you still can’t see our theology in a new light, you might at least tolerate the notion if not fully embrace us wacky papists.

Let me begin by clarifying what a Catholic libertarian is not. We are not libertarian Catholics.

Yes, the difference seems subtle, but I feel that it is important. Catholics should never modify—and thus attempt to divide or customize—our Catholicism, which is One, Holy, Catholic (literally meaning universal and all-embracing) and Apostolic. While well-meaning Catholics use these terms frequently, there can actually be no conservative Catholics, versus liberal Catholics, or even traditional Catholics, so there can certainly be no libertarian Catholics. [Marc Barnes does an excellent job making this point in his article Catholic. Nuff Said.] Technically, even the familiar term “Roman Catholic” isn’t an official label, but is rather a relatively-recent unofficial term, mostly used to distinguish Catholics under the most-common Roman Rite of the West instead of one of the other various valid Eastern liturgical rites (e.g., it is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, not the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church). Modifying our Catholicism in any way only does a disservice to the Church and the faith. Within the Church, there are only Catholics and there are heretics. We must instead use our Catholicism as the modifier for everything else!

Libertarians, meanwhile, are an incredibly philosophically-diverse group agreeing simply on the doctrine of free will. Beyond that, libertarianism is open to modifiers, as a simple search of Facebook page titles including “libertarians” will quickly demonstrate (Pro-Life Libertarians, LGBT Libertarians, Christian Libertarians, Punk Rock Libertarians, etc.). It is quite logical to conclude that Catholic libertarians can, in fact, be a thing. More than just being possible, however, it is the careful examination and uncompromising application of our Catholic faith along with a hard look at the realities of the State which has led us to discern political conclusions that currently happen to be best classified as “libertarian.”

Before continuing, it is worth noting for any non-libertarian Catholics who may have wandered here that the word “anarchism” does not mean “no rules” and thus “chaos” as is a common misconception, but rather “no rulers,” equating it essentially to true free-market capitalism and Austrian economics, which foster voluntary rules (think contractual law), mutually-beneficial exchanges, and no small amount of charity. Due to these common misunderstandings, however, philosophical anarchism is now often appropriately relabeled as voluntaryism.

As Jeffrey Tucker notes, there’s actually a very rich history of Catholicanarchism, which is always just below the surface of the Catholic Church. Historically, Catholics haven’t made very good subjects to the worldly governments of men, favoring instead our citizenship in heaven. Thousands of persecuted and martyred Saints are honored by the Church for defying coercive empires and unjust laws throughout history. (Pictured to the right is Fr. Francisco Vera who was executed by firing squad in 1927—only 87 years ago—for defiantly holding a public Mass against Mexican law.) Not to mention Jesus Himself, whose birth, ministry and death were all in criminal defiance of the State; He was even accused of subverting the state and opposing taxation leading up to His capital punishment (Luke 23:2). True Catholic history is almost nothing but the Church vs. the State, and the Church has continued to outlast every oppressive government since 33 A.D.! Doctors of the Church St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine practically wrote out the Non-Aggression Principle, teaching that vices should not be made into crimes, “lest certain goods be lost, or certain greater evils be incurred”, even arguing the more-moral case against criminalizing prostitution. More recently, Servant of God Dorothy Day(featured image at top)—who has been endorsed for canonization as a Saint by His Eminence, Timothy Cardinal Dolan—as an outspoken anarcho-distributist who opposed taxation, voting and “Holy Mother State” wrote:

Anarchism is based on love not hate. Self-government rather than an imposed government… The true anarchist asks nothing for himself, he is self disciplined, self denying, accepting the Cross, without asking sympathy, without complaint. The true anarchist loves his brother, according to the new law, ready to die rather than compel his brother to go his totalitarian way, no matter how convinced he may be that his way is the only way … Anarchism is personalist before it’s communitarian: it begins with living a disciplined life, trying to be what you want the other fellow to be.

Edit: I originally forgot to mention the great Catholic apologist G. K. Chesterton, to whom David Friedman devotes the final chapter of his book The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism, stating:

When I first discovered Chesterton I was already a libertarian. I enjoyed his political essays while being puzzled and intrigued to find him defending, with equal intelligence and persuasiveness, Christian and even Catholic orthodoxy— ideas which seemed as indefensible to me as his (and my) political views seemed to everyone else. It was still more intriguing to learn that he was a Christian not in spite of being a libertarian but because of it … I think it worth recording as evidence that modern readers, especially libertarians, should take seriously Chesterton’s claim concerning the connection between his political and religious views.

Dorothy Day also wrote of Chesterton in her autobiography The Long Lonliness:

G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc…and Father Vincent McNabb were the great distributists who opposed the servile state, the ‘providential state’ as Pope Pius XII recently called it… [They] would have feared the word, ‘anarchist,’ and understood it only in its popular connotation. I myself prefer the word ‘libertarian,’ as less apt to offend.

Interestingly, the only sovereign nation that functions today as a truly voluntary society with no forced taxation, no offensive military, no coercion, and ex officio leadership is Vatican City. Some view Vatican City as a monarchy, however, it is a purely voluntary authority with no threat of force against you for rejecting it, satisfying the Non-Aggression Principle. This idea is further explored in this Mises.org journal entitled Vatican City as a Free Society. J.R.R. Tolkien—another Catholic anarchist—coined the idea of an anarcho-monarchy or “unconstitutional monarchy” as he called it, which is more of a symbolic kingship with no actual governing power based on force, but instead a voluntary leadership for the purpose of serving others, much like the Holy See (this is reflected in his books with The Return of the King; additionally, the Shire was his ideal anarchist society while Sauron reflects the State). This is all modeled after the Kingship of Christ which hinges entirely on love, which is the voluntary giving of ourselves, including even voluntary obedience, by our own free will.

Wow! Excellent article, Mark. As a Catholic, I’ve been looking for examples of how I can jive being Catholic with my world view. To me it makes perfect sense, but until now, it has simply been a gut feeling, so I appreciate your thoughtful wording of it. I appreciate what you’ve given me in this article and look forward to future articles. Thank you!

Great article. I am curious why don’t more catholics or christians for that matter think themselves as libertarian? I have heard some Christians proclaim socialism as more in line with what they believe. Although a continuous theme throughout the bibal is freedom. It not necisarily clear enough from what I understand to be outright defending libertatrianism. Would the Pope consider himself a libertarian? Although I do agree with you that what a libertarian is not set in stone, but encapeses a wide range of philosophies.

I’m not into religion of any sort and don’t practice it, but of course I don’t give two shits about who does practice it. I think more religions would be thoroughly benevolent if they valued the NAP. So Catholic anarchy sounds like a good combination to me.
The good part of this article for me was where it looked into the anarchist history of Catholicism. There is a homeless shelter in my city named after Dorothy Day; it’s awesome to know that not every “Saint this” or “Saint that” old building was named after a tyrannical religious overlord. Keep on separating the ugly from the anarchy in Catholic history, it would do a good service on keeping accurate perspective.
It’s funny you think Catholicism is the most hated religion, but I’m glad you didn’t say it was atheism! Too many butthurt atheists saying they’re surrounded by oppressive religious idiots, when in reality we are at the turning point for that. Atheism is all too common and accepted, along with agnosticism. Unless you get into a particular niche culture. I don’t know what the most hated religion is; in America it might be Islam. Worldwide, is Judaism in the argument or is Jewish persecution more of a race thing? Whatever it may be, this was still a stand-up article.

Dorothy Day an anarchist? Are you kidding? She claimed to be a reformed communist but her actions would say otherwise. She openly called for the confiscation of private property and elimination of the banking industry, as well as the destruction of capitalism.

Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement are marxists and most of them freely admit it.

In my limited experience, american christians, esp evangelicals, study the old testament, skip over the gospels and go straight to St Paul. I think that explains how they can be such rabid military-supporting, blood-thirsty chicken hawks. They probably never even heard the sermon on the mount. I contend they are not christian at all, since they don’t follow Jesus’ teachings. Two instances come to mind: Joseph Farah advocating for the death of every man, woman and CHILD in fallujah, i kid you not, and the “audience” (paid shills, no doubt) who booed Ron Paul at the S. Carolina pres “debate.” Makes my blood boil…

Mark, you are 100% correct that catholics should find libertarianism compatible with their beliefs. Marshall Fritz used to discuss this quite a bit, and you should add him to your list of Catholic libertarians. He had a list of modern moral precepts that are descended directly from the teachings of the Catholic Church and that most people have no idea of these origins.

Will you be discussing science and the Church? That’s a pettest of peaves for me–the idea that the church was anti-science.

As was the case with me for quite some time, I believe that most Catholics and other Christians in America equate libertarian as meaning, “socially liberal but economically conservative.” I used to joke that they were essentially progressive liberals who were just good at math. I viewed them as half-Republican and half-Democrat (ha!), and I believe this is a common and widespread ignorance. The unchallenged and incorrect assumption that I held was that if I believe issues such as abortion and homosexuality are morally grave, theologically incorrect and spiritually unhealthy behaviors, that I must therefore support state laws that claim to supposedly reflect my beliefs. The resulting and ironic implication is that many Christians come to believe that the only way to deal with these moral issues is via the secular immoral state. They thus relinquish their Christian responsibility to love their *neighbor* over to the state, replacing it with an intangible notion of loving “humanity” or “the country” instead. Because libertarians would say that these issues should not be handled by the state, I automatically assumed that to be an endorsement of such behaviors, which is not the case. Now, not only do I understand that moral issues can be ethically addressed without the state, but that doing so it actually much more effective, approaching with love instead of coercion. I will elaborate on these ideas in future articles.

To your second question, personally, I believe that the Papacy as an office transcends any worldly political labels, which is why Pope Francis, as the immediate example, challenges everyone in the political spectrum, myself included, and why I would be surprised if any pope ever outwardly labeled himself. He has made statements, unfortunately, indicating that he confuses free market capitalism with crony state “capitalism.” That said, the Catholic teaching of infallibility only applies to matters of faith and doctrine, not other issues such as politics and economics, which were specifically excluded from the charism of infallibility (which is often incorrectly confused as implying “impeccability”). This means that the Pope as an individual can still be wrong, and that it is possible to be a devout Catholic accepting 100% of Catholic teaching, while disagreeing with the opinions of Church leaders. Pope Francis has obviously been heavily influenced by South American socialism, as have other Church leaders been by European socialism. I still deeply respect his wisdom, but I also recognize that he is obviously not an economist, which would be expecting an awful lot considering his job requirements. Loving him as a spiritual leader has been both inspiring as well as challenging at times, reminding me to keep my priorities straight and not allow my political musings to displace my faith rather than flow from it.

Thank you for this comment. I hope that I reciprocate this spirit of sincere interest in understanding others and seeking to correct my own assumptions. 🙂 If you have any future questions, concerns or curiosities about Catholicism, feel free to shoot them my way!

Thank you for your thoughts and candor. There is certainly some ugly in Catholic history, although not nearly as much as is often believed. When we’re talking about 2,000 years of history, it’s unfortunate that the vast amount of good and countless contributions to civilization often get overwritten in history books and in minds by the small handful of scoundrels.

I was conscious of the fact that others can easily argue that other groups are more hated than Catholicism. Islam and Judaism crossed my mind as well, although what I meant when I said to look to what is vilified and attacked the most by the *mainstream* world, I more specifically mean the mainstream media, popular culture, etc. In this I maintain that the Catholic Church receives the brunt of criticism, but I concede that more generally speaking among individuals you may be right.

Thanks for pointing this out, David. I need to read your full book, but I’ve enjoyed excerpts online. I liked your realization that Chesterton became Catholic not in spite of being a libertarian but because of it. Conversely, I became libertarian not in spite of being Catholic but because of it.

She was not an anarcho-capitalist, no, but an anarcho-pacifist. She echoed some sentiments of socialism and called for more communal cooperation, but the key is that she called for these things to be done voluntarily out of charity, not via the state. She had absolutely no use, nor nothing good to say about the state. Yes, some of her followers cherry-pick her writings unfortunately.

“The true anarchist asks nothing for himself, he is self disciplined, self denying, accepting the Cross, without asking sympathy, without complaint. The true anarchist loves his brother, according to the new law, ready to die rather than compel his brother to go his totalitarian way, no matter how convinced he may be that his way is the only way … Anarchism is personalist before it’s communitarian: it begins with living a disciplined life, trying to be what you want the other fellow to be.” ~ Servant of God Dorothy Day

Cathy, thank you for your comment. Sorry I missed your question at the end earlier and just caught it. I hadn’t considered it for this audience, but now that you mention it, I will probably discuss the Church and science and at some point, including her innumerable and invaluable contributions to the sciences as well as her full and welcome embrace of the study of God’s creation. The misrepresentation of these facts peeves me as well and I have written about in some depth; it would be fun to explore again. For now, I’ll leave you with my favorite quote on the topic:

“Consider the difference for a woman when her optometrist looks in her eyes and when her husband or boyfriend does so. The scientist is looking at her cornea and records the scientific facts. The lover is looking at her soul and proclaims something more poetic and inspired (we hope). Does the scientist ‘disprove’ the lover? No. These are simply two perspectives on the same reality. The author of Genesis wasn’t a scientist, but a lover inspired by God to proclaim the spiritual mysteries at the origin of the world and of mankind. We must keep this in mind as we examine the creation stories. ~ Christopher West, The Theology of the Body for Beginners

Depends on how thin or thick the libertarian is. For a paper thin libertarian like me, I of course agree with you. On the other hand, even Jefferson wrote, “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them.”

Why would he write something like this? Well, back then it appears that this was true. So, perhaps, only to the extent that this is no longer true is there truly no conflict.

What we can infer from Jefferson is that religious and non-religious institutions, in order to protect their interests, will lobby or bribe those who have political power. In a modern sense, you could replace the word priest with corporations, unions, environmentalists, and so on.

That said, just because the institution of Catholicism is corrupt doesn’t mean individuals who practice the religion are corrupt.

On a side note:

The thick or thin idea (Brutalist–a horrible word choice) I don’t understand. The whole discussion is irrational, subjective, and anti-libertarian.

Kon, I am not criticizing you. These terms seem to have infected the minds of people on this site. It has reduced many of its members to nothing more than Jacobins trying to purify the movement and set up a Republic of Virtue.

There is nothing special to being a Catholic libertarian anymore than being a Protestant libertarian, a black or white libertarian, a sushi-loving libertarian, a tall or short libertarian, an industrial metal libertarian … I think you get the picture.

Who people are and what they do with their liberty is nobody’s business. Wearing it as a badge of virtue over others, however, is un-libertarian.